In John Carpenter’s classic, Laurie Strode (Jamie Lee Curtis) hides in a closet with louvered doors while Michael Myers stalks her. She cowers on the floor as he tries to break in, then improvises a weapon by straightening a wire coat hanger and stabbing him in the eye, buying herself enough time to escape.
In Crystal Lake, Pam Voorhees finds herself in a strikingly similar situation. During a violent struggle inside her house, she’s thrown into a closet with louvered doors. She ends up cowering on the floor as the fight continues, with the slatted doors clearly visible in the frame. Instead of a coat hanger, she finds a machete inside an old box and uses it to slash her attacker’s face, turning the tables in the confined space.
The visual parallels—the louvered closet doors, the character trapped and cowering on the floor, the improvised weapon pulled from the closet itself—feel deliberate. It’s the kind of reference that longtime slasher fans are likely to catch immediately, especially given how foundational both Halloween and Friday the 13th are to the slasher subgenre.
